Step 3 – Generate Content For Your Website

So you have done your site research and created your bare bones site. What now?

Now you have to fill that site with content. But not just any content. Content that will enable you to make money with your site. Content that will get ranked in the search engines and give you floods of visitors.

Site content can take many different forms, but it generally falls into two categories: informational content and reviews.

Informational Content

Pretty much what the name says. Your aim is to provide good quality articles, blog posts or blurbs that will answer your visitors questions. The content pulls the visitor from the search engines, article directories or wherever onto your website where you have the chance to make some money off him (we cover monetizing your website in step 4).

The key factor with informational content is that it should be SEO food for the search engines. Do keyword research and find key phrases without a lot of competition, but with a lot of people searching for it (almost like a mini step 1). Target those key phrases when writing your content and each page will help to pull in more visitors.

Informational content is the most widely used and easiest to produce content and there are various ways to get this content.

Write It Yourself

This is the cheapest option, but also the most difficult and time consuming. Not everybody is a Hemingway or Shakespeare – actually don’t write like Shakespeare as nobody will understand you

If you need to do some research on what to write go to Ezinearticles.com and read through some of their articles on your chosen topic.

Some people also use content creation software. Out of everything I have tested the best one by far is Instant Article Wizard Pro. Have a look at their sales page to see what content can be generated within minutes without you doing anything. Everything is done be the software. In terms of cost effectiveness this is the best option.

PLR

PLR stands for public label rights and just means that you can use the article whose rights you bought any way you want. You can rewrite it, put your name on it, use different parts of it, etc.

If you do use PLR articles, make sure to change it or rewrite it as much as possible, or else you are going to compete with everybody that bought the articles. A good rule of thumb is to at least rewrite the following:

• Title
• First paragraph
• Last paragraph
• A few sentences inbetween to personalize it

By far the best PLR service around is PLRPro. I have been a member for years and am very happy with the quality of their articles. As a bonus they include a number of very powerful tools for free. Some of them feature regularly in my marketing arsenal so you will definitely see a some case studies using PLRPro and their tools.

Outsourcing

The most expensive option but if you need 1,000 articles do you really want to write them yourself? On Elance.com you can get articles for around $4, but please make sure about the quality of the writer before ordering a lot of articles from them.

I tend to order 5 articles. If I think they are good quality, I will order a larger batch. However, keep in mind that for excellent quality articles by native English writers you will pay at least $15 per article.

I almost forgot. I have been trying out a new article writing service called Articlez and it is pretty good and inexpensive. You can buy credits which you then redeem for content, from short blurbs to longer articles. A 350 word article costs $6 and it is written by native English speakers. Check it out if you are thinking about outsourcing your article writing.

Reviews

Again, it is pretty self explanatory. You write reviews about products or services and then offer that product or service through an affiliate link.

Writing a review is more involved than writing an article and to write an effective review you should have used the product or service. However, if you write effective reviews you can earn a lot more money than with pure informational articles.

The main point in writing a good review is to show the reader that you know what you are talking about – you have had the same problems as they do and by using the product or service those problems were solved. It is crucial to convince your reader that you have used the product or service, as that will build their trust. And if they trust you they are much more likely to buy the product you are recommending.

Another tip when writing reviews is to mention at least one negative point, but make sure that it is a minor one. Something like “I tried the 3 day acne cure and after 5 days my acne was cured.” Most people won’t be put off by the fact that it took 2 days longer than the sales copy states.

If you decide to outsource your reviews make sure to slightly change the review and put your own flavor on it. People are not stupid and if the review is too clinical they won’t believe it.

How Many Pages Should My Site Be?

The answer here is another question: “how much information can you give that will help (1) convert visitors into sales or (2) increase traffic to your website.

I have seen 2 or 3 page sites making $500 per month and 100 page sites making $500 per month. It depends on the niche, the products, your competition and a bunch of other factors.

For a good small niche site I would generally recommend 20-30 pages.

So you have generated some content for your site. THe next step is to monetize your site.